Martin Luther King Jr.: A man (and prophet) for all seasons

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now”

–Martin Luther King, Jr

Some days it doesn’t feel like we’re all in the same boat, but we’re all in the same boat. . . .

MLK Jr. was a prophet in the best sense, a prophet in the tradition of the biblical prophets demanding justice and paying heavy, heavy prices for their uncompromising demands for God’s will for justice.

King’s many speeches and sermons and lectures and interviews said one incisive and truthful thing after another, the most famous being his “dream” speech,” of course. Like the biblical prophets he confounded, even angered some of his own friends and allies, as when he came out forcefully against the Vietnam War from the pulpit of the historic Riverside Church in New York. Why, his friends and allies pleaded, did he want to distract from the cause of civil rights and alienate scores of more Americans by speaking out against the war? Click here to see just how forceful that speech was, and how radical (and prophetic) it was in 1967 when he gave it a year before his assassination.